What’s in a Car? Memories on Wheels

I was walking the dogs this morning when our young neighbor drove by in a Jeep. Her bumper sticker said it all: “Jeep Hair Don’t Care.”

In a flash, a memory hit: me singing to the radio in my first car, a beast of an 8-cylinder Buick sedan handed down by my grandfather. Riding in it was like sitting in a living room, with its long blue bench seats and the scenery floating by. That Buick was so old and rusty, I had to duct tape the wheel wells so it would pass state inspection; within minutes of inspection, the tape would come loose and start flapping like streamers.

The next notable car was the forest green VW Beetle I bought in graduate school. The only way to defrost the windshield was to aim a defroster tube straight at the glass. If there hadn’t been holes rusted through the floor, I probably would have asphyxiated from the exhaust fumes. Still, like all of my favorite cars, this one served as dressing room, camping van, living room, and dining room as I shuttled between classes, restaurant gigs, and a moldy basement studio apartment.

It wasn’t until I finished my master’s degree that I got my first “real car;” that is, a vehicle that would reliably start every morning. This was when my mother gave me a manual shift, 6-cylinder Pontiac Sunbird as a graduation present. She regretted the decision when I announced that I intended to drive to San Francisco.

“If I’d known you were going to pull a stunt like that,” Mom grumbled, “I would’ve given you a watch instead.”

I set off on my cross-country adventure nonetheless. I was 26 years old with a newly-minted MFA, an unpublished novel, and no job skills beyond being able to balance multiple hot plates on my arms. No credit cards or cell phone. Nothing but cash—and not much of that—a couple of suitcases, cassette tapes, my cat, and a wooden Japanese screen from a thrift shop. I navigated from the East Coast to the West using paper maps that were never properly folded because I couldn’t be bothered with the complex origami of it. The cat howled any time we were in motion and I sang to drown her out.

The adventures on that particular cross-country trip were enough to set any mother’s hair on fire. I received a speeding ticket for going over 100 mph from a cop who said, “If you were my daughter, I’d throw you in jail.”

In Denver, I was nearly car-jacked by a guy in a hotel parking lot who threw himself onto the hood and demanded a ride. I floored the accelerator instead and knocked him off.

Then, in the middle of Death Valley, my car overheated. When I pulled into a remote rest stop, the bathroom was filled with women and children. They had washed their clothes and hung them on the bathroom stalls, and had set up a hot plate for cooking.

Outside, I was immediately surrounded by men who told me they’d lost all their money in Las Vegas. They pleaded with me to pay them to fix my car. “Our kids are hungry and so are we.”

“I don’t have much to give,” I said, handing them ten dollars just as a truck driver pulled into the lot and jumped down from his cab.

“Leave her alone,” he barked and asked me what the problem was.

When I explained, he fiddled with the engine, added water to something, and followed me the rest of the way to San Francisco to make sure I reached my friend’s house in the city. I’ll forever regret not knowing how to get in touch with him to say thank you.

In San Francisco, I drove up and over the crest of a hill with such speed that the car flew into the air like something out of a movie and landed a bang on the other side. Once I’d found a job, I sold the Pontiac to a guy in his twenties with a goatee and pockets full of cash and bought my first new car ever: a sensible Honda.

That Honda ferried me to Mexico and Canada before I married and moved back to Massachusetts, where I rapidly moved into the dreaded Minivan stage once the children started coming. It wasn’t until a few years ago that I realized I could once again fall in love with a car.

This time it was a Mini Cooper Clubman in a deep plum color. It’s small enough to park anywhere in Boston, but big enough for my dogs when I road trip to Prince Edward Island. Good on gas, but still a joy to drive.

“So do we have a deal?” the salesman asked after I’d done a test drive with that car.

I shook my head. “Not unless you include racing stripes on the hood.”

He gave me a look that said Really? I suppose because I’m over sixty and meant to be sedate.

“Yup,” I said. “That’s the deal.”

Maybe now I need a bumper sticker: “Mini Hair Don’t Care.”